I mentioned a few days ago I was looking into options that don’t include me spending the foreseeable future on ODSP. One of those options, which as I expected didn’t pan out, was a conversation had between the employment assistance service I’m going through and Online Support, the only really non-retail/construction/what have you company in town who I’ve been turned down by before on matters of accessibility–specifically, they didn’t particularly feel very inclined to be accessible. The end result of that conversation was exactly as I’d expected, so that option was quickly shelved in favour of a more constructive, if more expensive–for either me or the government–one. Specifically, a return to the environment of school.
Ontario has a sort of second career program, in which if you’ve been laid off as a result of the recession folks are now saying we’re coming out of, and fall into certain criteria, you may or may not be able to secure funding to head yourself back to school and either expand on skills you currently have or gain new ones. This is supposed to make you more marketable/hireable/generally approachable by employers. Unfortunately, before I ieven get to figure out if I do or don’t qualify for the appropriate funding, there’s about half a million bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through, some of them twice. first in the apparent mountain of boxes I have to check off is a crap ton of research I need to do to figure out exactly what course I want to take, at what college, and how much more x course at y college is than the same course offered at z college–hello, OCAS. Long time no see.
Then, I call my person on Monday, bury him in the accumulated course list he’s asked for, answer a few dozen more questions re: exactly what I want to do/where I want to end up/how much I want to make/how many houses I plan to own in the next 5 years, probably book an appointment, go in and fill out a crap ton of paperwork, then cross my fingers and hope for the best. All of this to try and get me into some course, somewhere in Ontario, by the fall semester. Lucky for me, I already have a pretty freaking good idea where I want any future education I get a crack at to put me. Now, the trick is to put it on paper, find relevant options in Ontario, pray our otherwise stingey government doesn’t laugh at me, and see what comes next. If everything goes well, I may not have a clue where I’ll be living in a year or two but I’ll know where I’m going to college/university/whatever. Or I’ll be working. And if all doesn’t go well, I’ll be in the same situation minus the college thing. Can’t argue with that. Well, I can, but it won’t do much good. So, instead, I do believe it’s research time. Thank God Ottawa’s still got a ton of techy courses, even if the tech market in general’s kind of drying up a little.